A Moratorium on Stoning Woman

*

The following is about an exchange that took place between Nicolas Sarkozy and Tariq Ramadan. I clipped parts from two articles. Both are well worth reading and I encourage you to do so.

~~~

With 6 million viewers watching, Sarkozy asked Ramadan, famed as an Islamic version of a Euro-Communist, if he agreed with his brother Hani Ramadan—who had argued, in line with Muslim law, that adulterous women should be stoned to death.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-06-19fs.html

~~~

Sarkozy: A moratorium.... Mr. Ramadan, are you serious?

Ramadan: Wait, let me finish.

Sarkozy: A moratorium, that is to say, we should, for a while, hold back from stoning women?

Ramadan: No, no, wait.... What does a moratorium mean? A moratorium would mean that we absolutely end the application of all of those penalties, in order to have a true debate. And my position is that if we arrive at a consensus among Muslims, it will necessarily end. But you cannot, you know, when you are in a community.... Today on television, I can please the French people who are watching by saying, "Me, my own position." But my own position doesn't count. What matters is to bring about an evolution in Muslim mentalities, Mr. Sarkozy. It's necessary that you understand....

Sarkozy: But, Mr. Ramadan....

Ramadan: Let me finish.

Sarkozy: Just one point. I understand you, but Muslims are human beings who live in 2003 in France, since we are speaking about the French community, and you have just said something particularly incredible, which is that the stoning of women, yes, the stoning is a bit shocking, but we should simply declare a moratorium, and then we are going to think about it in order to decide if it is good.... But that's monstrous--to stone a woman because she is an adulterer! It's necessary to condemn it!

Ramadan: Mr. Sarkozy, listen well to what I am saying. What I say, my own position, is that the law is not applicable--that's clear. But today, I speak to Muslims around the world and I take part, even in the United States, in the Muslim world.... You should have a pedagogical posture that makes people discuss things. You can decide all by yourself to be a progressive in the communities. That's too easy. Today my position is, that is to say, "We should stop."

Sarkozy: Mr. Ramadan, if it is regressive not to want to stone women, I avow that I am a regressive.

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ah6sxjndq9qq_315dwk7qn

A Credible Threat Of Force, (Or The Lack There Of)

*
As someone said to me over the weekend, “There are not enough glass parking lots in the Middle-East. They have no reason to take us seriously. We have weapons, that if used the way they were meant to be used, could win us this war decisively.”

He then went on to say something that he has repeated to me many times. “If we aren't going to fight this war the right way, as if we should win it, then we should not be fighting it at all.”

I think he is right.

I don't really understand how it came about, though I have some suspicions, but the West has forgotten how to fight wars.

Wars are not meant to be nice and polite affairs were nobody really gets hurt or even bruised, wars are meant to be terrible and horrific calamities that our enemies would want to avoid with us at every conceivable cost.

We should fight our wars so brutally and so lopsidedly that our enemies shiver at the very thought of us moving against them militarily.

Unfortunately, we have not fought our wars that way since World War Two.

Too many have forgotten, too many have never understood, that the lesson of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that when our enemies believe that they have no hope for winning, and not even a hope of noble death in battle, they will surrender, and spare us the heavy burden of having to kill every damn one of them.

When our enemies have hope that they can prevail against us, that we will lack the will to pull the trigger or that we will let even the most ephemeral of things such as “world opinion” stay our hand, then our enemies will continue to fight us, forcing us into the position of having to kill many more of them as they kill many more of us than would otherwise be the case.

~~~

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just act--ask you about Iran. You brought up Iran. What should we do? Because we continue to hear more and more of just what you're saying. What should the United States do at this point about Iran?

Sen. LIEBERMAN: It's very important, Bob, because I didn't just go to Iraq, I went visited throughout the Arab world and Israel. And what you see throughout the Middle East is Iran in battle basically with us and the moderates, supplying the extremists in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas fighting the Fatah faction, our allies among the Palestinians, and, of course, committing terrorists acts against the Israelis. I'm not one to say we shouldn't sit down with the Iranians. I'm glad we did that in Baghdad a while ago. What we did was present them with evidence that we have that I've seen that I believe is incontrovertible that the Iranians are training and equipping the Iraqi extremists to come into Iraq, and they're killing American soldiers and Iraqis. And I think this is a very important moment. If we're going to sit and talk about the Iranians, tell them what we want them to do, which is to stop doing that, because it's killing Americans, we can't leave it at that. I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq. And to me that would include a strike into--over the border into Iran where I--we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let's just stop right there, because I think you've probably made some news here, Senator Lieberman. You're saying that, if the--if the Iranians don't let up, that the United States should take military action against them.

Sen. LIEBERMAN: I am, and I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran or--but it--we have good evidence. We've told them, we've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers. Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that, but if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping for
instance their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them. If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force and, to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing now.

SCHIEFFER: Would you go in on the ground, or could you do that from the air?

Sen. LIEBERMAN: I'd leave that to the--to the generals in charge. I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air. But they can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans. It's just--we cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part, and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region, and ultimately right here at home.
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_061007.pdf

Their Doom Is In Their Demographics

*
Demographic changes move exponentially.

Islam will become dominant in Europe.

Muslims in Europe are have children at a rate far greater than non-Muslim Europeans.

Consider what the following portends for England alone.

~~~

The name of the Prophet was given to 6,010 babies last year, compared to 6,928 children who were called Jack.

Officially the name did not appear in the list of top ten boys’ names published by the Office of National Statistics, because the total number of registrations is split into 16 different spelling variations.

But when added together the name has eclipsed Thomas, which now lies in third place at 5,921 registrations, and Joshua, which lies in fourth with 5,808 registrations.

The frequency of the name increased by 12 per cent between 2005 and 2006. If it were to increase at the same rate, while the number of registrations of Jacks stayed the same, it will be the most popular boy’s name in the UK in 2008. The name entered the top 30 in 2000.

Demographic experts say high fertility rates among Muslims compared to the British population as a whole are driving the increase.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/07/nboys107.xml

At present Islam is not the dominant religion in the UK.

But it soon will be.

Russia, Iran and Europe

*
Russia helps Iran develop a nuclear weapons capability.

Russia threatens Europeans with nuclear death for daring to consider defending themselves from Iranian rockets.

~~~

This week, Russia tested a new missile that could strike neighbouring countries, a move that Mr. Putin subsequently announced was a response to the “imperialism” of the United States. He is angered by the U.S. plan to install an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe, which Washington says is aimed at preventing attacks from Iran on U.S. soil. It would include a radar base in Hungary and an anti-missile launch site in Poland.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin denounced those, presumably the U.S. administration, “who want to dictate their will to all others regardless of international norms and law.”

“It's dangerous and harmful,” he said.

“Norms of the international law were replaced with political expediency. We view it as diktat and imperialism.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070602.wputin-legacy02/BNStory/International

Putin Threatens Europe with Nuclear Weapons

*
I expect that the Europeans will knuckle under.

Courage in the face of threats from their enemies is not something that we can expect from nations with their populations rapidly aging and in dramatic decline.

Europe is so screwed.

~~~

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target Europe with missiles, including potentially nuclear weapons, in a dramatic escalation of his Cold War-style showdown with the United States.

Mr. Putin, in an interview at his country residence outside Moscow, said he considers U.S. plans to build an eastern European anti-missile site to shoot down Iranian missiles a provocation aimed at Russia.

Asked what he might do to retaliate, he said he would return Russia to the Cold War status where missiles were aimed at European targets.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070602.wputin01/BNStory/International/home

Czar Putin Against The US & The Europeans Too

*
If you had any doubts about whether or not Putin thought that the US and the European nations were enemies of Russia, you should put all such childish doubt away.

The proposed missile shield for Europe to counter rocket attacks from the Islamic nut-burger nations of the world has met stiff opposition from a quarter it should not have.

Russia.

---

"The missile shield only creates the theoretical illusion that one is protected, but the possibility that a nuclear conflict is unleashed is actually greater," Putin told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine in an interview to be published on Sunday.

Washington says it wants to avert attacks from "rogue states" such as Iran, which the West suspects of wanting to get an atomic bomb, but Russia sees a threat to its own security.

"The strategic balance in the West is disturbed," said Putin, adding Russia had to create a system to counter U.S. weapons.
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL0247880120070602

WTF?

I don't think that the Russians could make it any plainer that they would rather that Europe remain wide open to a nuclear rocket attack from them than to do anything provocative like set up defensive shield against rocket attacks from nut-burger Islamic blood suckers like Iran. (Now aren't the Russians providing the Iranians with some assistance with their nuclear weapons program too? What's up with that?)

Its bad enough that we have a planet full of Islamic ghouls bent on endless bloodletting of Westerners and various other “infidels” to worry about with out paranoid Russians off their Prozac stirring shit up too.

A Blessed and Rich Nation

*
Sometimes it is instructive to contemplate the moment.

To observe and reflect on how you are living, where you are living and who you are living it with.

I was called into work early this Saturday morning to see if I could fix a problem that my coworkers could not figure out.

I could not figure out how to fix the problem either. No one I called in the company, whether they were at home enjoying the weekend or in the office wishing they were, could figure out how to fix the problem.

Oh Well.

Some problems just have to wait for Monday.

From there I wondered out and about with nothing else to do, with no other deadlines to meet and with no other obligations to tend.

So I wondered about on an impromptu walkabout

At this very moment, I am sitting in a little caffé in a small Naval port town. It is a blue sky day with a light breeze stirring the warm clean air. I ordered a late breakfast sandwich, a coffee, and a sherbet. They offer free WiFi here too.

A small roadside antiques and crafts fair is attracting a steady stream of shoppers on one of the town's main streets. There are balloons tied to the barricades blocking off the street to cars. Couples stroll past the merchants, most hand in hand, some trailing children, some leading their dogs, all unhurried and unworried.

Sometimes it is instructive to contemplate the moment.

It is a blessing to live in a place like this.

It is a blessing to live in a country where this carefree and easy life is possible.

(I will try to remember all this on Monday when the shit hits the fan over that problem I could not fix today.)